FCC Proposes New A-CAM Broadband Offers; Wants to Auction Certain ROR Lines

There’s a lot more behind the news that the Federal Communications Commission plans to increase the minimum broadband speed target in rural areas that wasn’t detailed in FCC Chairman Pai’s recent blog post about current commission initiatives. The plan to increase the minimum broadband speed is just one aspect of a 125-page order that the FCC will consider next month. Also detailed in the order: a plan to make new offers of model-based A-CAM broadband support to rural rate-of-return (ROR) carriers. In addition, the FCC wants to establish a specific budget for ROR carriers that remain on the traditional Universal Service Fund (USF) program, to increase broadband build-out speed requirements and to use a different budget control mechanism for the traditional USF program. And the commission wants to create a new auction to award broadband funding for lines in ROR territories where competitors have made extensive deployments.